


Fire and the Flood

by StrikerStiles



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Everyone Has Issues, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up, Injury, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Wedding Planning, perceived self vs self perception, victor and yuuri are NOT yuri's parents...or are they?, yuri is having a not-quarter life crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikerStiles/pseuds/StrikerStiles
Summary: A how to (hopefully) survive a not-yet-quarter life crisis guide by four time world champion Yuri Plisetsky
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 44
Kudos: 124





	1. you're miles away but I still feel you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carpelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpelia/gifts).



> The title's from Fire and the Flood by Vance Joy, which, to me, is the perfect song for these two. Also, I know nothing about ice skating.
> 
> 9.12.2020 edit: I forgot to link it here but I wrote a commentary about this story back in April. You can find it [here](https://luciande.livejournal.com/37482.html)

Otabek's face is grainy on his laptop's screen, thanks to shitty airport wi-fi. He's in the VIP lounge for fuck's sake, what's the point of paying a month's rent for a ticket if they won't give you wi-fi that actually works in return? (He knows he makes way too much to complain about ticket prices and that he should be grateful, and he is, but on the inside he will always be that little boy who had to check and double check his deda's paychecks to see if they can afford to buy stuff like meat and still be able to pay for the heating. Some things never leave you, no matter how much you grow.)

“Hi, Yura.” His voice sounds raw but soft, like he's just woken up. His hair is immaculate, though, and he's wearing real person clothes, which means he's also in an airport somewhere, going to god knows where. They are always going to somewhere or another.

“Hey yourself.” He unzips his backpack, pulls out his tablet and opens the design file he's been sent just hours ago. “So, next costume. What do you think?”

“Looks nice,” says Otabek through a yawn. “But you look nice in everything, so.” He shrugs.

“That was so very elaborate, thanks.” He tries not to pout because he hates it when he does that, but he can't help himself, not when he's hungry and cold and groggy with the lack of sleep. He wants Otabek's attention like flowers want sunlight. He's a world champion, he should be able to afford some luxuries.

“Well, that's the truth. You can come out wearing something made out of seaweed and you would still look- what has the Vogue called you again? Ephemeral?”

“Ethereal.” He feels nauseous every time he remembers that. It's just.....it's such a hard thing to live up to. You can't have scars or have stupid back pain or bad knees when you are ethereal. You can't be homesick or stupid or less than. You can't be human. And the older he gets, Yuri craves feeling human more and more. It's miserable, really, but he can't really help it. He's been a boy wonder, an angel, an obsession for all kinds of perverts and apparently, a muse for designers. But he never got to be human, nothing raw or crooked or ugly. Nothing mundane. Is he insane, to want that, he wonders sometimes. Usually late at night, while staring at the ceiling of a foreign hotel room. It makes him remember the anger. How angry he's been, throughout his teenage years. Silently fuming even while he looked perfectly serene on ice, his mind never shutting up for a second. How he wanted to destroy everything on his path, how he hated everyone around him, the way they looked so comfortable with themselves, how sure and knowing. How he wanted to make them all crumble, feel weak and feeble like he felt.

Not Otabek, though. His calmness always soothed something inside Yuri. Like a familiar melody that your soul knows and remembers, even when you do not.

Suddenly, he misses him so fiercely, so badly, it takes his breath away.

“Oh yeah, that.” Otabek offers a small smile. “That was a good word, if I say so myself.”

“Did you call me to comment on a 3 year old article?” He sounds too harsh to his own ears but he can't help it. Old habits die hard, no matter how hard you kick them over the head. He wants to say that he's so glad for this call. He wants to say that he misses Otabek with his entire being. He wants to confess all his worries and fears and he even-no. He's not going to confess wanting Otabek to come get him, wrap him in a soft, warm jumper and let him sleep with his head on his lap, his fingers gently tangling in Yuri's hair, even to himself. He's a world champion. He needs to lie better.

“I called to say happy birthday, actually.” No matter how grainy, Otabek's face is still beautiful enough to be stared at, with his soft smile and his soft, sleepy eyes surrounded by bruises. “You can drink in America now. A real adult.”

“Fuck off.”

“So, did you get a chance to think about the thing?”

He sighs. 5 months ago, Otabek asked him about his plans for the future and Yuri swore he was gonna think about it _if he could have a second of peace, for fuck's sake, Beka, it's four in the morning, let me live!_ and then he didn't, because who would want to think about the horrible, ridiculously nebulous concept of future? Yuri has enough existential dread without that. It's hard to be a star in a line of work that thinks you come with an expiration date. Harder, when that date is approaching with terrorizing speed. Harder, when that has been the only thing you've ever learned how to do; the only thing you've ever been good at.

He needs to make his peace with this, somehow. He has nearly a decade left still but it doesn't look like enough time. There is so much he wants to do, all related to skating. He doesn't know a life beyond it. Otabek wouldn't really understand that; he has a degree and some internships he somehow managed to squeeze between competitions and training.

“I'm not sure,” he sighs. “I though maybe I can coach, you know? Not that I'm patient or nurturing or whatever the fuck Victor claims to be- can you believe that asshole?- but I can't just leave skating behind. That's the only thing I've ever dreamed of doing. The only thing I've ever wanted to do.”

“You wouldn't have to leave anything behind. You can still skate with another job.”

“I know. But it wouldn't be the same, would it?”

“Nothing is ever the same, Yura.”

“Can I speak to my regular best friend instead of therapy Beka?”

“I'm just saying that you don't need to think in such absolutes. You will overwhelm yourself like that. Start small. Pick little things here and there and the big stuff will sort itself out when the time comes-”

“You realise who you're talking to, right?”

“Well, there you go. You can be a professional control freak.”

“Hilarious. I'm hanging up.”

He smiles again and Yuri can't stop the twitching of his own lips. It's like they have developed a conditioned reflex at this point.

“I miss you,” he says, before he can think better. He doesn't have a choice. It would've torn something inside him if he didn't let it out. It always does. Maybe Mila is right. Maybe he does need a therapist, and not the physical kind. He also needs that though. As Mila likes to say, he needs a bucket load of therapy, in general.

Otabek's face softens, impossibly, even more and he doesn't even look like a real person anymore, he looks like a pillow fortress or something, something you can take shelter in. Maybe I should ask him to become my emotional support person, Yuri thinks. He can live the rest of his life with his face buried in Otabek's chest. That wouldn't be weird at all, right?

“I miss you too.” Otabek worries his bottom lip with his teeth for a while and Yuri forces himself to stare into his pixelated eyes, nowhere else. “If things go well in Korea, maybe my coach would let me come visit?”

“Things will go well. You will crush them.”

“We'll see. I'll text you, okay?”

“Yeah.” He doesn't want to hang up. He never wants to hang up. His eyes are so dry from the lack of sleep and his constant staring at screens, they burn. He wants them to keep doing that, forever. It's ridiculous.

Is this a normal thing to feel about a friend? Yuri wouldn't know. He's never had friends before. He doesn't know how to do people, either. That's why he has a publicist and shit. But he knows Otabek. He knows how to talk to Otabek.

Maybe he can do a job in which he had to only talk to Otabek. Whatever fucking job that would be.

“Bring back some gold. You know I'm only in this for the gold.”

Yuri lets himself smile this time.

“Fine, you gold digger, I will get it for you.”

“And again, happy birthday to this senior citizen.”

“You're older than me.”

“My knees are doing better than yours though.”

“Fuck you and fuck your knees.”

“I just might, with this choreography.”

“I take it back, don't fuck your knees. I still need piggyback rides from beaches.”

“You're such a pampered-”

“I just hate sand, okay?”

“Yeah, it's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”

“You're not funny.”

“It's too early to be funny.” He yawns again. “I really have to go. Just, remember this for me. Small things first. Okay?”

He sighs. “Fine. See you around?”

Otabek nods solemnly at him before he ends the call.

Small things. Yuri closes his tormented eyes and lets his mind wander. Small things, but they should still matter. Otabek wouldn't tell him to start by choosing what flavor of protein bar he will have. He needs to find out what matters, first. Great. Sounds very easy.

What can go wrong?

oOo

Yuri has one good memory with Victor. (yes just the one, go fuck yourself old man.)

_He was seven, back when his feet bleeding still made him upset. He was sad, but he doesn't remember what for, now. He remembers Victor coming to talk to him. He remembers him kneeling in front of him with his stupid hair and stupid smile and talking about stupid stuff._

_And then, when all else failed, he offered Yuri a challenge._

_“I'm practicing for quadruple axels.” His smile was fainter but still present. “Maybe you should start, too. And then we would see who gets there first. What do you say, Yuratchka?”_

_“Don't call me that.”_

_“Is that all?”_

_“Fine. I'll do it before you can imagine doing it.”_

_Victor's smile was bright again. “I'm imagining it right now. You better get up.”_

After a whole week of speaking English for interviews and promotional shots, Russian feels weird on his tongue. Cloyingly sweet and thick, like molasses. The international line isn't helping either with its endless static and weird noises. How the fuck the connection can still be this shitty in the 21st fucking century, he cannot understand for the life of him. Of course it's Victor's fault as per usual because if he was a decent person and a not horrible fucking coach, he would be there with Yuri instead of all the way over at Hasetsu bathing in mushy glory.

“We were wondering-” Victor starts and then the static eats the rest up.

“What did you just say?” He left the “fuck” out because his deda wants him to swear less but Victor, as per usual, is trying his patience.

“We want you to be the ring bearer. Are you really surprised?”

“For multiple reasons! First of all, I'm not five. Second of all, I don't wanna be a part of your mushiness rituals. Third of all, I don't even like you guys.”

“Sure, Yurio, whatever you say. Also, Yuuri sends his love. I think you should be here around april for your fittings-”

“Are you losing your hearing? I won't do it. I haven't even decided if I will be coming-”

“That's a shame, Otabek was very happy to hear that you were.”

Yuri's blood runs cold. “Don't you dare-”

“Oh, I already did.” Victor sounds like a fat cat under a rain of fish. “You wouldn't want to disappoint your best friend, would you?”

“I hate you. I hate you so much.”

“And we love you, Yurio, never forget that. See you next week. Don't overpractice your jumps this time, or Talia may put us both on timeout.”

And this is why you should never let your guard down for a minute.


	2. in the cold I stood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri interacting with people. You know, like adults do.

The thing is, it's hard.

It's hard to determine what matters, to isolate it and to figure it all out. To choose what to do about all of it. To take a step into the dark, endless cave that will be his future.

Yuri doesn't like making things. They are never perfect when he makes them. He would rather trust himself into the hands of others, like Lilia, like Yakov (like fucking Victor, in a pinch) because they can see him in his entirety, unlike himself, who only sees what the world reflects back to him. He doesn't fancy himself perfect, not even close, but in the hands of others, he can become something resembling and that usually is enough to calm his soul enough.

This time, he cannot cheat. Not that it would stop him from trying.

“First things first....” Mila's voice has that lilting amusement that makes something in Yuri prick up. “How about you go and say Otabek you would like to touch his ass very much-”

“Oh I knew-fuck you.” He gets up so fast black spots swim in his vision for a second but he doesn't stop, walks as fast as he can in the weird footing his skates provide.

“Okay, okay! I just wanted to ruffle your feathers a bit, Yuratchka, come on, come back.”

He stops, takes a deep breath in the hope that it would calm the rising tide in his head.

“Seriously, Yuri, I wasn't aware it was this serious. Peace?”

“Fine.” He returns to her side and gracelessly throws himself down on the bench.

“I think when he said start with the small things, he may have meant short term stuff.” Mila pulls out a hair tie out of her pocket and starts braiding her hair into a complicated style. Yuri would rather die than admit this but watching her hands work is strangely soothing. “Like where you would like to live, right after, or which school to go.”

“You mean just the type of stuff that would determine the rest of my life then, piece of cake,” he says humorlessly. Mila sticks her tongue out at him like they are 5.

“Just things that can be fulfilled in a short amount of time, then,” she says. A lock of hair slides out of her grip and she silently curses, trying to incorporate it back into the rest. _I will not use this hag's hair situation as a metaphor for my life_ , Yuri tells himself strictly. _I'm not that low yet_. His brain flips him off.

Mila ties her saved braid neatly. “I really think you should talk to him, though. Don't you think it would be good to know?”

“What if he says no?”

“What if he says yes?”

“Too risky.”

“Since when you shy away from those?”

“Not with things that actually matter, I can't-”

“You literally risked your entire spine with your last choreography Yur-”

“I can't, okay? He's....” His entire face is burning. “He's too important.”

“Yuratchka,” Mila's voice is so soft.

“Don't.” He runs his fingers through his hair and he huffs, annoyed, when it falls on his face with a vengeance. “I've heard anything you can possibly say a billion times already. I just can't. Call me a coward and be done with it.”

“Okay, strange sad person, but Yuri will come back in a second and kick your ass for calling him a coward.” Mila swats his hand away when he almost pulls his hair out in annoyance. She gently starts combing it with her fingers. Yuri was cartoonishly angry with her a second ago but he melts instantly. He put up a valiant effort to maintain the scowl on his face. “Love is hard, Yuri. No one can deny that. The younger you are, the harder it is. But if I know anything about men-”

“-you don't-”

“That boy loves you a lot.” She starts dividing his hair into sections. Yuri sighs when she starts a fishtail and her gentle pulling puts a small amount of pressure on his temple.

“Love doesn't make things not awkward, though. I still don't know why he's friends with me. Why he's put up with me for this long.”

“A wild guess here but maybe because he likes you? Finds you nice to be around? Worthy of his time?”

“He once told me I had the eyes of a soldier.”

“What a platonic thing to say to the friend you are solely interested in a very platonic way-”

“Fuck off. He was just trying to get me to understand that he saw me.”

“Isn't that the fucking dream?”

“I guess.” He swallows what feels like a pound of glass shards down. He's not gonna fucking cry. There is nothing here that would warrant crying. He didn't cry when coach after coach refused to take him on. He didn't cry when that shitty tabloid exposed that his mom literally dumped him on his deda and left. He didn't cry when he fell and fell and fell. He's not gonna cry now.

“You are scared that he can see you?”

“I'm scared that he's not gonna like what he sees.”

“It's been quite some time now-”

“It's like I'm constantly waiting the other shoe to drop.” He makes a fist and then stretches his fingers, over and over again. “One day he's gonna see a part that he doesn't like and then it will be over-”

“That's not how people work, Yuri.”

“The fuck they don't.”

“If we could just stop loving someone because we noticed something about them that we don't like or hell, we find dangerous, this world would be an easier place to live in.” Her voice is as solemn as he's ever heard it. “Love is not that easy to get rid of. Not when it's platonic and not when it's romantic. It sticks with you like gum in hair.”

“Poetic.”

He feels her tie the end of his braid. She tugs on it gently, almost playfully.

Teenage Yuri would have smacked her hand away already. It's like the older he gets, the needier he grows. There is a cat like part of him that craves little moments of intimacy like these from the people he trusts. The people who actually know him. He collects them like they're evidence for the case that they know him and still find him worthy of their love and time. Growing older also makes you mushier, apparently. What a curse. Will he turn into a being of sappiness like Victor once he hits thirty, he wonders distantly. That would actually be horrific.

“Life is not.” Mila takes a deep breath, then leaves it out slowly.

“You didn't really make it easier.”

“It's because you don't know how to lose.” She smiles at him fondly. “You've always won. Losing has its own grace, you know?”

“Sounds like something a loser would say,” he says, just to rile her up a bit. To make things feel not this soft and warm between them, so he can find his footing again. So he can banish this weird sticky feeling from his chest.

She nudges his shoulder with hers. It's harder to do nowadays, since Yuri is a lot taller than her now. “We'll see.” She gets up and starts walking towards the ice. “I'll race you.”

oOo

“I don't like this.” Victor's face on the screen is very serious at the moment, even though he's wearing a pink, flowery shirt and a ridiculous straw hat. “It's too much, Yuri.”

“It's not,” Yuri says, for what feels like the billionth time. “I can handle it.”

“This is not about your abilities-”

“What else there is to it?” he snaps. “I can do it. When did I ever fail? Why the fuck are you suddenly not trusting me?”

“I trust you. I'm just saying this is unrealistically ambitious and it can potentially hurt you. You don't need the quad for the points, Yuri. And we don't need you to hurt yourself in the middle of this season-”

“I'm not a fucking kid and you're not my fucking dad-”

“Exactly, I am your coach and it's my literal job to tell you when you're being unreasonable-”

“Oh fuck off you hypocrite! Did you win all those medals by playing it safe? Am I the one who broke their leg in training-”

“Yes, and that cost me two months that I could've been skating.” Victor's face is getting red, now. His eyes are eerily bright. Yuri tries not to think about the few times he's seen him angry. Victor is tons of mushiness and sunshine and some tissues in a person's shape most of the time but when he's angry, he's actually terrifying. “You are the defending champion. Your closest opponent is behind you by a good three points. You have nothing to prove-”

“I have a record to break. Is that what this is? Are you upset that I can break another one of your records?”

“You are being ridiculous.”

“And you make no damn sense! You are going soft since you've been out of competition. This is not how-”

“I was competing before you were even born you brat-”

“Don't patronize me-”

“Don't act like a toddler then!” Victor slaps something out of frame, probably the table his laptop is resting on.

“I'm telling you that I can do it.”

“And I'm telling you, as your coach, that I do not approve this addition. Just stick to our original plan during training. We will revise it when I'm back.-”

“Why the fuck are you not here?” Yuri is so frustrated he feels like he will burst from the seams. “It's almost the middle of the fucking season! You're suppose to be here to see what the fuck I'm doing. You know, act like you give a shit-”

“I give a shit, Yuri. But my shits prioritize your safety before your vanity. I will not have you senselessly injure yourself just because you want to dazzle three people more than usual.”

“MY VANITY- DID YOU JUST FUCKING SAY VANITY-”

“This conversation is over.” Victor pins him with a scalding look. “Keep practicing your original plan and we will revise it, if necessary, when I'm back.”

And then he hangs up.

Yuri imagines taking his laptop and throwing it against the wall. Kicking his locker's door until it breaks. Braining himself on ice, just to spite Victor.

Instead, he takes a deep breath, counts to ten and slowly lets it out, like Otabek showed him years ago.

He can fire Victor, in theory. There are many coaches that would drop everything in a moment's notice to come train him, now that he is a world champion. He would have his pick. It would be very satisfying to yell YOU'RE FIRED to Victor, the next time he pulls something like this.

He can't, though. That's why he picked Victor in the first place. Yuri's trust is so hard earned and even if he can be persuaded to give someone a chance to try, there is no time.

Also, no matter how much he hates it, he knows he needs a leash of some sorts. That's what Yakov said before he retired: “You have a destructive streak when left to your own devices, Yuri. You need someone who wouldn't cower from telling you off, otherwise you would break yourself apart.” And the most annoying part of it is, he can't even argue with this. He knows it's true. He has a penchant for dramatics,a fondness for glory. He would burn himself alive on the ice if he thought it's what it takes. Whatever it takes. He doesn't know where to stop. Eternally sacrificial. Eternally devoted.

His deda once told him, if not for the potty mouth and the unwavering cynicism, he would've made a good priest.

He clicks on Beka's tiny icon.

It's probably a rudely late hour to call but he needs to see him. Needs to hear his voice. Needs him to remind him that there are other things in this world other than skating and he can still be worth something without pushing himself to his breaking point.

“Yura?” Otabek looks worried. “Is everything alright?”

“No-I mean yes, yes, all is well. Just-I don't know. I'm sorry, I know it's very late-”

“It's okay.” His face relaxes slightly. “I was just trying to convince myself to go to bed.”

He's wearing a grey sweater. It looks very soft. Yuri wants to rub his face to it, like Potya does to his hands. Great, now he also misses his cat. Very helpful. Brains are truly assholes.

“I should let you sleep.” His voice sounds weird to his own ears. It's...hollow, somehow. Brittle.

“Are you sure everything is alright?”

“Of course. All is well. I just- I'm glad you were awake.” He didn't say nearly enough but it feels like too much.

“I'm glad I was awake too.”

Something blooms in his chest. Something warm and frightening.

“Goodnight, Beka.”

Otabek's gaze is still sharp, searching Yuri's face for a clue about this strange mood. In the end, he just sighs softly and offers a tiny smile. “Goodnight, Yura.”

Yuri smiles back, to the best of his ability. After the screen goes dark, he lets it fall from his face and sits there, feeling something he doesn't have a name for. There is longing in it, sure, and a little anger still from his talk with Victor. But there is something bigger in it as well, something strange and cold and achy. He doesn't like it. He wants to wallow in it forever.

He puts the laptop back into its case, gathers his things up and locks his locker. When he comes out the sky is already darkening; should be around five or six. The snow is still falling thick and fast. His hands are cold.

“Fuck getting older,” he mutters. A truck is backing up behind the arena, its signal too loud. A dog barks from the distance. The city is filled with noise and movement and people who have no clue who the fuck he is. Wouldn't care if he won or lose. When he was younger, that always filled him with determination. The wish to make them know his name; everyone, everywhere.

Some days, he finds, he likes it better this way.

oOo

Yuuri looks very startled when his face appears on the screen, as if he didn't know video calls were a thing.

“Yuri! Hi.”

“Katsudon. Where is the sorry excuse of a Yakov impersonator who calls himself my coach?”

“He's in the garden, on the phone with the planner.” Yuuri rubs his brows. “I think they are discussing the production costs of building a mini ice rink in the middle of the grove so we can have our first dance on ice-”

“The fuck-”

“I know, I did try to talk him out of it but you know how he gets when he's excited.” Even with all the tiredness and slight exasperation, Yuuri still sounds unbearably fond talking about his fiancé . Yuri bites back all the things his little teenage self would like him to say and instead goes with something a little less mean.

“Your Russian improved.”

Yuuri's face brightens. “Really?”

“Yeah, now you sound like a toddler.”

A few years ago, Yuuri would've retracted into his shell when faced with a comment like this but now he just chuckles. Growing up suits him, Yuri can't help but think. He looks better these days, surer. Happier.

The mushiness is still annoying as fuck, though.

“Good to know,” he says, his fingers playing with something Yuri can't really see. “I want to be able to talk to Vitya's parents a bit, at least.”

“Why? They are insane.” He takes another bite out of his apple. “Though I guess you're into that, going from-”

“What do you think of this?” Yuuri interrupts, holding up a little flower. It's small, with white petals surrounding a cheery yellow middle. Yuri squints a bit.

“Is that a daisy?”

“Camomile, actually.” Yuuri looks at him with anticipation.

“I don't know-they are not very flashy, are they? Victor approved this?”

“He left that decision to me,” Yuuri says, rolling his eyes but still-how the fuck can he sound so fucking fond, fuck this. “So, what do you say?”

“Am I suppose to have an opinion on flowers? You know who I am, right?”

“Well, it would be nice to pick something you would like, since you'll be carrying a basket full of these.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Because you are the ring bearer?”

“Oh fuck me- I forgot about that. I don't know, just pick whatever, I will hate every minute of carrying them anyway.”

Yuuri acts, again, like he didn't hear that. “Camomile would look nice with your hair, I thought,” he says it like this is a very obscure science, “and it's Russia's national flower-”

“We have a national flower?” Yuri stares at him. “What for?”

“I don't know.” Yuuri suddenly drops his calm mask and his mouth gets tighter and there it is. Yuri knew something was weird about him. “I don't know. I don't know how to choose a flower and that's the only thing he wanted me to pick, he asked me for one fucking thing and I can't even do tha-”

“Whoa, slow down there Katsudon.” Yuri's shoulders are all tense now, suddenly. Katsudon swearing is so rare, rarer still, in Russian. He kinda wants to yell _I need an adult_ but he's an adult now, apparently and it seems bad. And no matter how annoying they are, they mean- _something_ to Yuri. They opened their house to him, more than once. They once nursed him through a horrible cold. He has this half remembered memory of Yuuri putting his cool, soft hand on his brow one night. How nice it felt on his fevered skin, how soothing-

He's so fucking glad no one can read his mind.

“Listen, it's just some flowers. We can pick one. Focus on preparing to be eternally grateful to me and naming all your children after me- you know what, don't do that. I don't want to be a godfather.”

“You will really help?”

“Didn't I just say I fucking will? Just calm down. Your panicking gives me a headache.”

“Okay.” Yuuri takes a deep, shaky breath. Yuri remembers how he once kicked a door open just to call him pathetic to his crying face. It should be illegal, the way people get to grow on you. Rotting away the little walls you spent your entire life building. Making you care about what the fuck would happen to them.

Yuri picks his phone up and sends a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Obviously, this is an emergency,” Yuri says, half mocking half serious. “So I'm pulling out the big guns. I'm bringing Lilia in.”


	3. late at night when you can't fall asleep

It's been so long since he last saw Victor in person that his face looks weird without the pixelation. He's wearing an old team Russia jumper and he looks slightly distraught.

"I've been told you were practicing the quad."

Yuri sighs and shoots a dirty look at Mila and Georgi. They both stare at the floor as if it's the most marvelous thing they have ever seen in their entire lives. 

"It's going well," he answers eventually. "My current success ratio is 4 in 10-"

"I don't get why you are so hell-bent on not listening to me."

"Because I am not a newbie and you are not here to tell me what to do, your job is to offer advice."

"It's just a lot of money to pay for advices you never seem to take," Victor says coolly. 

He tried to waive his coaching fee when Yuri asked him to take him on, years ago. Yuri was adamant about paying. If we are going to do this, he said, we need to keep it as professional as possible. Otherwise it would've come crushing over their heads. Victor was reluctant still but Yuri was very stubborn, and in the end he let Yuri have his win. 

"You are being dramatic," Yuri says. "I take your advices when I find them beneficial-"

"So you think my efforts to preserve your wellbeing are not beneficial?"

"I think you are helicoptering at this point." 

They look at each other for a moment that stretches beyond reason. There is not a single noise in the entire arena. Yuri really wants to do something to defuse the sudden tension but he'll be damned if he's the first one to blink or look away. Victor's face is so empty, so devoid of expression, it's unsettling. 

"I'm no one's parent," he says in the end. The only part of his face that moves is his lips, and barely. His voice is very quiet. 

The words still knock the air out of Yuri, for some reason. 

"Good," he says, trying very hard to sound casual. "And I'm no one's child."

"Very well." Victor takes a few steps back, away from the perimeter. "Let's see it, then."

Yuri draws circles around the ice, getting his blood moving, picking up speed. The transition from the turn to the jump is graceful enough. He gets enough height for four rotations. His knees wobble a bit at the landing, as they've done very frequently this past month. It's because he's taller now, he thinks. Helps with jumping higher but sucks for balance. It's small but very upsetting to him. Even the tiniest cracks can take down an entire perfect ice castle.

"Not bad."

Yuri spits a rouge lock of hair that escaped the little bun. "Not bad?"

"It is impressive, considering you've only been practicing for it for three weeks. But technically it's not good enough to warrant taking a risk. You know this."

"It's just the knees. I can fix the knees-"

"According to Talia's report, your knees are not doing very well these days, Yuri. The rest of the program will be tolling enough on them. That thing you think as a little wobble can be very dangerous if you lose your footing even for a second, and you know-"

"God, will you stop lecturing me about the condition of my own fucking knees?" He is annoyed but also he feels a little.....sullen, for some reason. He tries to bury that very deep under his annoyance as he skates back to his beginning point. It's just...Victor is so... unresponsive to the jump. Not that Yuri needs his fucking attention. But it was sort of their thing. He remembers, when he was little, he would have dreams about this. Landing a perfect quadruple axel as Victor watches and Victor would- he would say-

Something. Something better than not bad. The fucker.

He suddenly recalls Victor's mocking voice asking him if he wanted to beat him. If he had idolized him. Yuri's anger suddenly burns so bright. He hates this. He hates how complicated your feelings about people get as you grow up. Being a teenager was hard enough with it; his rebellious streak telling him to fuck everyone's opinion having a neverending knife fight with the part of him that craved to impress them so much at the back of his mind. Now it's even worse though, because he knows no one will win this fight. 

If only his stupid mother could've stuck around longer than a hot minute, maybe Yuri wouldn't have to sort through this steaming pile of bullshit.

"Let's take it from the top," Victor says, as cold and still as the ice. "Without the jump, this time, please."

Yuri grinds his teeth and uses his hurt fucking pride as fuel.

OOo

"Neroli."

"What?"

"That's what Lilia said. Use neroli."

"What even is neroli?" 

Yuri narrows his eyes. Yuuri's hair is a mess and his eyes look very tired.

"When was the last time you slept?" 

"I don't know." His eyes are focused on a different point and his hands are moving. Probably googling neroli, Yuri thinks.

"You look like shit," he says, hoping to get his attention. "Even worse than that time when you thought Victor was ditching you."

Yuuri smacks his hand to his face and his glasses fall askew. 

"Thanks for the compliments-"

"It's just fucking flowers, Katsudon, come the fuck on. Even if Victor hates them, I think we will all outlive this. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? If you're getting cold feet after all this bullshit you two put me through, I'm actually going to hop on the first flight there and stab the shit out of you."

"It's not that. And I know it makes no sense, okay? I do. But it's important to him and he just asked for this one thing and I want to do this right. I want it to be perfect-"

Yuri bites his tongue before he can offer some bullshit Mila or Yakov tried to sell him, something along the lines of "perfection doesn't exist". He's not gonna turn into a hypocrite just to save Katsudon's diminishing ability to function.They sit silent for a second, Yuuri staring into a point past the screen and Yuri trying to figure out what to say without making it even worse. He should probably call Victor. Victor would know what to say to fix this. But Yuuri trusted him with this, not Victor. And a part of him almost likes it; being chosen as someone that can be relied on. It just sucks a lot for how gratifying it is.

"It won't, though," he says eventually. "Probably because your planner won't be able to make trees glow in the dark or build a giant waterfall in two days or fulfill some other ridiculously over the top demand Victor made. You, on the other hand, would have some flowers to show. Even if Victor hates them."

As unbelievable as it is, Yuuri seems actually comforted. "That's true," he says, sounding slightly less likely to throw himself in front of a moving truck.

"Toughen up, Katsudon. Besides, Victor has too many things disappointing him nowadays. Like our travel agency and my shitty jump-"

"What are you on about?" Yuuri suddenly sobers up. "You mean the quadruple axel?"

"Yeah it's- it's not a big deal. I'm just saying you shouldn't worry so much-"

"He was not disappointed by that, Yuri."

Yuri's entire resolve in handling this like an adult drowns under the wave of childish anger.

"The hell he wasn't. Not bad, that's all he said, not bad." His voice sounds whiny even to his own ears. "Not that I give a shit, obviously, but you would expect a more in depth comment from your fucking coach-"

"I'm telling you, he wasn't-"

"I've known the asshole longer than you, okay? I know how he acts when-"

"He was raving about that nonstop during our call last night," Yuuri says. "He wouldn't stop gushing about it. He had to start telling me about what the planner said thrice because he kept going back to your jump."

Yuri blinks at him, confused and slightly moved. Don't ask really in a very need voice, he tells himself very strictly. Have some dignity.

"It's been hard for him, you know, coaching you." The corners of Yuuri's lips slightly curl upwards. "He wasn't sure if you can make it work between the two of you. With the clashing egos and all-"

"His ego is so big it pushes mine out of the room every time-"

"You know what I mean. It's very important to him, to do right by you. And you know sometimes he can be a bit intense but you-it really matters to him. Okay?"

"Okay," Yuri says, in the most casual tone he can manage at the moment. "So, if you're done with your little speech, wanna go back to the fucking flower or what?"

"Right, neroli. It says here that it was widely used in weddings, traditionally. And they are white, which is good because they won't clash with any last minute color changes Vitya can make. I was thinking maybe-"

Yuri rolls his eyes at his incessant stream of words and worries, but as he takes another sip from his honestly abhorrent tasting smoothie, something in him settles.

oOo

Yuri lies awake in his bed that night, staring at the colorless ceiling, trying to figure out what he wants to begin with. 

Start small, Otabek had said, and it's easy enough to say but impossible to follow through. Nothing is small, when you think about them enough and Yuri would still be a world champion if he hadn't fallen in love with ice skating when he was a little gremlin, with his prowess in overthinking. He can't stop dissecting everything until he ends up with a bunch of pieces so tiny that they mean nothing to anyone. He tries to fool himself into thinking it helps somehow, but his mind calls him out on his own bullshit. He just keeps himself busy doing this, so he can tell Otabek that he tried, and it failed. Maybe he isn't the kind of person who can have things figured out before shit gets real, he would say. 

That's another lie.

Otabek is always kind to him, but he wouldn't let Yuri get away with bullshitting him either. And he knows Otabek is worried for him. Ten years may seem a very long time to some people, but Yuri would need that long to come up with a plan, with the amount of doubting and perfecting and revising and worrying and overthinking he needs to do. 

Objectively speaking, he knows he wants Otabek. It's very simple in his mind but impossible to put into words. I want you comes with so many connotations Yuri can't even begin to sort through. It's not sexual, or not solely sexual. It's also not solely in a friendly way. It's too big, too encompassing to put into words. He wants Otabek with him always. Not necessarily physically, but in one way or another. He wants to be the person people ask about Otabek. He wants Otabek to never stop looking at him, never stop seeing him, no matter how scary it is. If he's to be made in a reflection, he wants that to be the one he sees in Otabek's eyes. 

The entire thing is so fucking sappy he wants to hit himself. 

It's awkward enough to share with himself alone. And also, it's too much. Way too much to ask of anyone, leave alone Otabek who is fiercely independent, who already gives him more than his due. Asking more would be- something. 

He wants it given, he realises, but he really doesn't want to ask for it. He wants it to be given without him needing to ask. He wants Otabek to want to give that to him so much that he wouldn't ask Yuri to ask-

This is not helping at all.

He wonders how it went for Katsudon, who is eternally fragile when it comes to matters of feelings. He has a backbone made of steel when he's determined but that wouldn't have helped with love, too chaotic and all that. It doesn't let you practice for it, that's the thing. It never lets you try your moves in a no pressure environment, obsessively, over and over again, until you triumph or doom yourself by shattering a few bones. That's how Yuri approaches everything in his life, as far as the situation permits. His fails must happen in private. Anything that might break, any tears, any tiny bit that hurts must be for him alone. Yuuri-Yuuri is not like that, probably. Or maybe he was, but a couple of public accidents broke him out of the habit. Maybe Yuri needs to get his heart broken once, just so he can see the world doesn't end. That he can still breathe afterwards. 

He tries to imagine not being able to talk to Otabek for a second; not having the easy intimacy they nurtured for years with great care. He can handle not being loved back, he thinks. It would hurt, it would hurt like hell, but it's not something he didn't live through before. He knows he can survive that. Making your peace with the fact that the person who created you out of their own blood and marrow and skin not finding it in themselves to love you teaches you quite a lot about what is survivable. But not having Otabek at all, that seems impossible. What he's built since they've met, what he's become, there is so much of Otabek in it. Would the entire thing collapse, if he suddenly took all those pieces of himself away? How long would it take Yuri to rebuild? Would he be willing, after-

Fuck this and fuck his brain. 

He sniffs and closes his eyes very tightly in spite of the burning sensation in them. 

oOo

It's almost the 2 month mark, now. His success ratio is bordering 6 out of 10, maybe seven, in a good day. His knees still keep wobbling though, at least 5 times out of that 6. Victor's lips are thin as he watches Yuri put his arm up to balance himself. There is this weird tingling in his right knee, but it's fine. It doesn't even hurt. 

"I don't know," Victor says, once Yuri is off the ice. "You are doing well but technically it's still not good enough-"

"We still have a month," Yuri says dismissively. "I can make it-"

"How are your knees?"

"They are just fucking peachy," he says, throwing his water bottle back to his bag. Victor seems disbelieving and Yuri wonders for a second if it's the way he walks. He feels like he's walking normal but it's hard to determine with skates. He's not stupid. He wouldn't risk an injury by hiding a situation from his health team. But this is no big deal. It doesn't even hurt. Maybe he needs to ice it a little longer tonight. It'll be fine. 

"I think we should stop, for today." Victor is looking at his notebook, frowning. Yuri wonders what it is. Is it about his success rate? Another problem with their travel agent? Something else?

"I can go on for a little longer," he says, tightening the ties of his skates. 

"You've done the usual set-"

"I can do more."

"Fine." He gestures at the ice with his hand. Yuri huffs as he gets up and makes his way back to the place he belongs, where his skates increase his range of movement instead of diminishing it. 

He starts from the beginning; his body already knows the movements by heart, at this point. Mostly fluid movements with some sharp turns, carefully placed jumps, two sit spins. He sails through them like they are as natural to his body as breathing. When the music swells towards the end, he jumps, makes four rotations and then-

Yuri instantly knows something is wrong. 

His knees don't wobble this time, when he lands. They are stiff, like he wanted them to be but there is this weird feeling in the right one, something sharp yet numb- he suddenly loses his footing and before he knows it, he's on the ice.

The shoulder he used to break his fall twinges something mighty and his jaw rattles from the impact but the throbbing in his knee still eclipses everything. It hurts so bad for a second he loses his breath, his vision swims. He can faintly hear Mila yelling under the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. He rolls himself over to his uninjured shoulder and before he can finish his turn, there are three figures looming over him. 

Victor's skates are very loosely tied, which is a fucking amateur mistake if he ever saw one, but there is something so scary about his face that Yuri wouldn't open his mouth even if he wasn't breathless and tasting blood. Mila reaches for him, gloved hands gentle on his skull, looking for a bump or a cut. Georgi looks like he's about to faint. 

"I-fine," he says. He apparently bit the inside of his cheek and that also hurts, slightly. "Didn't hit my head-"

"Don't talk." The contours of Victor's body seem to shift minutely. It takes Yuri a second to realize he's shaking, very badly, like he's about to come out of his skin. "Give him some space," he says without taking his eyes off of Yuri. His voice, curiously, does not shake.

Mila mumbles something about getting the medic and then it's just Victor, kneeling on the ice and Yuri, reclining on his uninjured shoulder, staring at each other silently. Yuri would've rubbed his knee to try and get some feeling back into it but he can't, not with Victor watching him like a hawk, no doubt waiting his opening to yell I told you so at him. 

Yuri tries to pull his knee towards himself so he can get up and pain shoots through his knee all the way to his hip. He nearly doubles over, trying very hard not to heave his entire stomach out on the ice.

He fells a hand on his back, wrecked by tremors, slowly rubbing small circles into it. He takes deep breaths through his nose and manages to rein in his rebelling stomach. When he raises his head, Victor takes his hand away. 

"I just lost my balance," he says. "It's not a big-"

"Don't." Victor's jaw looks so tight Yuri worries he will break it. 

"Look, I'm-"

"Cut the bullshit Yuri." His voice is so fucking faint. Yuri gets more and more scared by the second. Why can't Victor just give him a shouting scolding and be done with it? Why is he acting so goddamn strange? "You nailed that landing. I saw every second of it. You fell after your feet were on the ice."

Yuri doesn't say anything. 

"It's your knee, isn't it?"

Yuri opens his mouth to yell at him- he's not picky about the words, he just needs to yell, he's hurting all over and his coach acts like a complete lunatic and-

And at that exact moment, Mila rushes in with the medic, Talia the physical therapist right after them and Victor gets up when he's asked to, gives Yuri one last indecipherable look and silently leaves. 

oOo

"I'm truly fine," he says, then wiggles around to adjust his knee, raised high on a bunch of cushions with an ice pack on top. "It's not even broken. They said I've torn a ligament. It will be fine."

"But the competition-" Otabek pauses, unsure. Yuri sighs.

"I know. I probably won't make it, at this rate." And how casual he sounds, as if the thought doesn't clog his throat, doesn't make him want to crawl out of his own skin.

"I'm so sorry, Yura."

"Don't be. It's my fucking fault. I thought maybe I pushed it too much, you know, that it would go away with some icing. I should've suspect something more serious-"

"You couldn't have known. You can't blame yourself for this-"

"Victor told me to look out for my knees like seventy times, since I've begun practicing. He told me it might end badly."

"That was a possibility-"

"And now it's the reality." He smiles, because his face wants to twist anyway. He doesn't want to ruin this call. As the competition approaches, they don't get to talk as much. He wants to enjoy the time he has with Beka, no matter how short. Even if he just possibly unraveled his entire life. "Look, there is nothing to be done now. I will keep off of it as much as I can for six weeks. And then physical therapy and stuff, you know how it goes. I think I can still come to watch you losers for a change. My ticket is already booked after all."

"Do you need help? I can come over if you can give me a few days-"

"I would rather not get strangled to death by your coach but thank you anyway." He tries to lighten the mood. "Don't worry about me. Deda will be here tonight. Mila said she would pick him up from the train station. Now that I'm officially off season, I can have all the pirozhki my heart desires. Are you jealous?"

"Wildly," Otabek replies. He's smiling but still looks uneasy, worried. Yuri really wants to be able to hold him right now. It's weird, how his frustration and anger takes the second seat when Otabek is involved. His mind wants to comfort him, as if he's the one who got hurt. Wants him to believe that Yuri is fine. Go compete without that worry clouding his head, show the world all he has. 

Love is one hell of a drug, Yuri decides. Certainly works better for calming him down than the sedative his doctor insisted on to ensure he would stay in bed. He's in a lot of pain, very upset with himself, filled with rage and disappointment and fucking mourning but he can still talk to Otabek. He's the only person Yuri can stomach the prospect of speaking to more than a few words, at the moment. The only person he wants to speak to. 

He suspects if he had shattered his knee and completely fucked his career over, he still would want to talk to Otabek. He thinks, for a brief, very melodramatic moment, that he would wake up from a fucking coma through the sheer power of his desire to talk to Otabek. He blushes, even though no one but him heard that ridiculous thought. God, those painkillers must be getting to his brain.

Yuri opens his mouth but at the same time, someone yells something in Kazakh and Otabek yells something back and sighs, turning back to Yuri. "I really have to go-"

"It's okay. We can talk later."

"Just call whenever. You know I stay up late."

His smile is real, this time, not converted from a grimace. "Alright, I will. Get ready for three in the morning calls filled with nothing but my constant complaining."

"Looking forward to it." He smiles before the screen goes dark. 

Yuri bites his lip very hard to prevent a very melodramatic sigh from escaping them.

oOo  
Of course, his mood plummets soon after their call is over. 

Seeing his deda cheers him up a bit. He also brought Potya, who complains loudly about having to suffer through the disrespect of being put in his carrier, a four hour long train ride and months of no petting from Yuri.

So when he lays in his bed awake that night, he has a guest at his pity party. Potya grumbles and stretches as Yuri pets him dutifully as he spirals, thinking about anything and everything from the possibility of never being able to skate ever again to how badly he failed . After he cries himself a full blown waterfall, comes the calm. The worst thing that can happen happened already. He lost without a fighting chance. Defeated not by opponents he respects but his own self. He let himself down, worse than he let everyone else down. The rest of the night, he spends thinking about that. 

He talks to his deda, of course, because he loves him fiercely and he already knows what Yuri looks like stripped away from everything. He's safety and warmth and home. He makes Yuri a small mountain of pirozhki and watches him stuff his face, smiling fondly. Takes care of him like he had, when Yuri was small and helpless. Answers the phone because everyone keeps calling to wish him a speedy recovery, to talk about his travel details, to revise his treatment plan. He says Mila offered to come braid his hair so it doesn't tangle into a horrible mess as he slumbers for weeks, that Georgi sent his favorite chocolate. Yuri feels a bit warmer but he knows he can't see them now. Needs to lick his wounds first. Needs to face his first defeat. 

If deda speaks to Victor, he doesn't mention it. Victor always calls Yuri's cell, which he keeps leaving to ring and ring, until the caller gets tired and stops. Victor is more stubborn than most, but so is Yuri. 

He doesn't pick up Yuuri's calls either, but texts him about their flower situation, which he researches obsessively; suppliers near Hasetsu that list neroli, the prices, possible arrangements they can be made into... 

He makes an effort to keep it together. Sometimes, he fails. 

Mostly, he tries.


	4. since we met I feel a lightness in my step

Italy is very hot for late spring, but inside the rink it's cold as ever and Yuri's still healing knee twinges a bit in its soft brace. He doesn't care, though. He probably wouldn't mind if someone came in and shot him right in his chest right then. Because Otabek is on the ice, performing his program for Yuri and it's distracting enough to be lethal.

Yuri saw bits and pieces of his program in videos, of course, but seeing it in person is always different. Seeing _him_ in person is always different. His presence is so captivating, so powerful, it's like he's not moving at all, the Earth moves under him just because he demanded it. Like he tamed gravity and the ice and the laws of physics, somehow. Like-

Yuri needs to calm the fuck down right now.

He takes a deep breath and hopes his staring channels an appreciative interest rather than _thirst_ , as Yuri's Angels keep claiming under posts about the two of them. Maybe he's a little thirsty. Who can blame him though, when Otabek is allowed to walk around looking like _that_? When he's allowed to treat Yuri like _that_? He may be physically more capable than most, but he's only human after all. He deserves a break.

Otabek's coach says something in Kazakh, and even though Yuri's been trying to learn it very fastidiously, he's still not at the point where he can understand any of it. Otabek gives a short answer, moves back to his starting point, panting slightly. It's the third repetition his coach demanded.

Yuri can watch it for the rest of his life, surviving on pure longing.

He thought about sex, obviously. He's been a teenager, after all. But it was hard maintaining the obsession levels of a regular fifteen year old when your body aches constantly from getting thrown on a hard, cold surface on a daily basis. It kills the mood pretty efficiently. Besides, sex is also one of those things that scare Yuri with how chaotic and unpredictable it is, the amount of trust it demands. His body is his life's work; every tiny bit of it shaped into what it is through agonizing pain and sweat and blood. Trusting someone else with it _like that_ is- troubling, even in theory. Not that he doesn't trust Otabek. Otabek is always gentle with him, even with the most casual touches. He remembers Otabek laughing, head thrown back, his throat bared to Yuri without a second thought, after he suggested the taking glove off with teeth part. "You really can't do anything in halves, can you, Yura?" he had said. But he agreed and-

And Yuri wants to kick himself until his fucking knee is actually broken because it's definitely not a good time or place to think about sex or Otabek biting things, for fuck's sake.

"Yura?"

He doesn't jump but it's too close a call for comfort. Yuri blinks a few times and focuses on Otabek, who is suddenly very close to him, leaning on the barrier that surrounds the ice.

"Are you in pain?" There is this tiny crease between his eyebrows that Yuri is unimaginably fond of. "Should I go get someone-"

"No, no, I was just thinking about something," he says quickly. "That was really good, you know? JJ won't even know what hit him."

Otabek's lips quirk but it's not really a smile.

"What is it?" He scoots in his seat until his butt rests on the edge and he can put his arms on the barrier as well, between Otabek's.

"It's stupid really." Otabek huffs slightly. "It's just- I was really looking forward to competing with you."

Yuri wants to jump over the barrier and do- _something_ to Otabek. He's not sure what. But something. Definitely something.

"Missed getting your ass kicked?" he asks instead with a shit eating grin.

"Oh, I was packing a surprise just for you, Yura." He leans in a little closer, probably not aware he's doing it. "Sad that no one will get to see it, now."

Yuri stares into his eyes, feeling quite like he was caught in a place he's not suppose to be in. His mouth is suddenly as dry as, well, somewhere very dry. He wets his lips without even thinking about it.

And suddenly he's free because Otabek moves, goes to the left a bit and as Yuri looks at him all confused, comes back with his water bottle and thrusts it into Yuri's hand. And Yuri is suddenly outraged. He tries to drown it with a giant gulp of water. Otabek is just too fucking much. Someone should just arrest him already. Surely someone should protect Yuri's sanity. He's a taxpayer and all that.

"Better?" he asks, as if Yuri didn't have to suffer through enough for one day.

"Yeah, thanks," Yuri mutters without making eye contact. "Well, since you insist you won't use it in competition- which, by the way, a stupid decision if you ask me, but maybe-" He forces himself to look into Otabek's eyes again. "Show me?"

Otabek's smile is tight lipped and slow blooming but it's real, this time.

"Strap yourself in," he says, before he skates back into the middle of the ice. It suddenly feels colder without him there and Yuri puts his hand on the barrier, where his arms were resting a second ago, shamelessly seeking his heat.

Love, he knows, like all human emotions, is a fancy cocktail of hormones, essentially. Some of those hormones, he decides then, must eat away your brain bit by bit. That's the only logical explanation for this shit.

The metal loses what little heat it retained in mere seconds but Yuri doesn't take his hand away all the while as he sits there and watches in amazement and slowly loses brain cells from pining.

Where the fuck is the health department when you need them?

oOo

Women's competition is held earlier in the day for some reason, so Yuri goes in first to watch Mila. And of course Victor is there because he's also Mila's coach, so technically, it shouldn't come as a surprise but it does. He looks a little paler (probably because he's not spending his days outside like he did in Japan), a little more tired. Him and Mila are standing close, their heads bent together, probably doing their last evaluation. Yuri briefly considers sitting in the bleachers but it's too crowded. He would never make it with his little crutch. He waits until Mila leaves Victor's side to go do her warm up, then steels himself.

Victor nods towards him in acknowledgement but doesn't look away from Mila. Yuri silently sits next to Georgi, who offers a smile and gets a nod back. His stupid knee twinges again from not being raised for a while. He worries his lip with his teeth, trying to adjust it in way that would bring some comfort.

"You can put it on my lap," Georgi says suddenly.

For whatever reason, Yuri remembers sleeping curled up with them at airports. Being eleven, head on Mila's lap, Victor's team jacket draped over him like a blanket. Being twelve, watching as Mila's head falls on Georgi's shoulder. Being eighteen and sitting propped against Victor as he and Georgi are having a seemingly endless discussion about fruit cake, of all things. He stopped touching them abruptly once he hit thirteen and didn't start again until he was seventeen. It was a lonely stretch of time, even though he never acknowledged it. Airports are always lonely.

"It gets heavy after a while," he says.

"How heavy can it be?" Georgi shrugs with one shoulder. "Besides, it's not like I'll compete."

He retired at 29 but never really stopped skating. Yuri thinks he skates better now that he gets to do it just for fun. It's very confusing sometimes, how people can be different like this. He works in graphic design, as far as he told them, but never misses a competition. Yuri kinda likes it, if he's being honest. He likes that they still get to be all there.

He's a bit unsure still, but raises his leg and drapes it over Georgi's lap and it's immediately worlds better. He tries to convey his thanks with his face but Georgi already turned back to the ice, so Yuri angles his body towards that direction as well.

Mila gets silver to Sara Crispino's gold and Victor's face is so bright Yuri has to look away from them as they hug with a bunch of photographers capturing the moment. It's partly about his weird relationship with the people he considers as caregiver figures, he assumes. He always felt like he was leaving Yakov down too, when he failed a jump or something. But it's even worse with Victor, for some reason. Maybe because he's been a rival and instructor both. Two layers.

Mila hugs him before he can come back to the surface again. He realizes he hugged her back instinctively, nose in her hair. He also finds a small smile on his face. It's a little unsettling but he's okay with it, he finds. Mila only lets go after Yuri starts complaining about how his knee hurts.

OOo

Otabek is the fifth to take the ice and as JJ's, who is the fourth, program comes to an end, Yuri finds his patience getting thinner and thinner. He wants to see Otabek now. It's only been a couple hours but somehow it's even worse not seeing him, when they are in the same place for once. It's like he's wasting their precious time.

Victor is talking to Otabek's coach in a hushed tone. Both men laugh, probably a joke Yuri completely missed, and continue to evaluate JJ's program. Yuri keeps staring at the too bright lights, feeling tense. JJ finally stops preening and leaves the ice and the little ones finish picking up all the flowers and toys and knick knacks.

Otabek's coach gets up and walks towards the barrier.

Yuri sits a bit straighter.

And then, Otabek is on the ice.

People cheer and yell and clap, as per usual. Yuri can't hear it. His eyes watch Otabek as he stands in the middle of the ice, eyes closed, poised. Waiting.

Then the music starts, but it's very faint to Yuri's ears. All he can hear is his blood rushing in his ears. Otabek goes through the same program Yuri watched just this morning but it's seems different with the costume and the lights. Otabek looks different as well. His face is not serene and concentrated as it was during his little demonstration. It's filled with something very intense, his jaw set like he's here to pick up a fight with the ice itself. Yuri tries to regulate his breathing very carefully, so that he doesn't pant or gasp like a love struck idiot in a movie but it's hard. Paying close attention somehow makes it even harder to not breathe very erratically. Next to him, Victor is still as a statue. Otabek goes through a very complicated set of steps, performs a perfect axel, makes so many sharp turns that Yuri gets dizzy with it. For the first time in his life, he's not watching a program thinking about the technical side of things or calculating points in his head. It's like he got to barrow a fan's eyes for a second and he's awed by the sheer movement, the grace, the way the blades of Otabek's skates glint as they catch the light minutely. It's like a tide raising in his chest.

He's always found skating beautiful, but in way an engineer might admire a well made machine. The technicality of it, the deliberation that went into it, the effort. Now, he watches Otabek move as he's watching tides crush on the beach. It would be foolish to think about the physics of it all, while it's so tremendous, so powerful, so _ethereal_. There. Now he knows how it fits.

And then, almost abruptly, it ends and as Otabek stands, his arm raised, in his final pose, Yuri sits there feeling like he was just dropped from a height.

The entire arena is roaring around them, people screaming things and clapping. In Yuri's head, when he goes back to this moment later, it's utterly silent. There is no noise, no movement, no change. Otabek's face, half illuminated by the bright lights and half in deep shadow, is eternally captured in this perfect snapshot. He doesn't remember the rest very well. He doesn't remember the points or the ceremony. It's like time suddenly flashes forward and he's in the changing room. Otabek is having a video call with his family. Yuri can see his sisters moving in and out of frame constantly. His mother's face bright with pride. His father laughing at something along with Otabek.

He waits patiently, silently, until he's done. And maybe gets a bit too comfortable in watching him without being seen that he doesn't move once Otabek hangs up and starts gathering his things either. He keeps on watching the line of his shoulders, slightly tense from all the effort. The way muscles work under skin as he picks things up. The medal's ribbon is very starkly red against the pale skin of his nape. Yuri numbly imagines putting his lips right there. He can, now, without needing to raise himself on the tips of his toes. He's tall enough.

Otabek suddenly startles and turns around. Yuri was so deep in thought he can't even do anything that would make him standing there silently seem less weird. He just keeps looking at Otabek, hoping his blush is not as noticeable under the dim light.

"Yura, you scared me." As he walks towards Yuri, the gold medal glints on his chest. Yuri looks at it until Otabek is too close for him to keep doing that.

"I'm sorry," Otabek says.

Yuri looks at him, confused.

"You act like it's not a big deal but I know it upsets you, not being able to compete." He looks very serious. "Look, we don't have to celebrate, if you are not in the mood. We can just do something else-"

"Isn't that what you do when you win?"

"Not necessarily," Otabek's eyes are very keen on his face. "I would rather be with you, whatever you would like to do-"

"What are you on about?" Yuri's blood is suddenly ignited.. "You do realize you just won the whole thing, right? That it's kind of a big deal?"

"Yeah, but-"

"You would just -what? Sit alone with me in a hotel room and order room service and watch TV? Like you didn't just became a world champion? Broke a fucking record to boot? Just because I might throw a tantrum?"

"I never said anything about a tantrum and-"

"Of course I fucking want to celebrate your win you colossal idiot!" Yuri can barely breathe from the intensity of his feelings. "How can you think that I wouldn't?"

"I didn't think you wouldn't." Otabek looks taken aback. "I just wanted you to know that it wouldn't be a big deal, if you didn't. I just want to spend some time with you."

Yuri stares at him, mouth hanging open, not one single word left in his brain in any language at all. He briefly considers kissing Otabek right there and then. That would be an adequate answer to whatever the fuck Otabek just told him means. Or maybe he should take a page out of Katsudon's book and propose on the spot. Or maybe he should give in to the rage and throw something at Otabek.

Before he can do anything as dramatic as either of these, however, his knee decides it had enough of Yuri's entire weight resting on it and starts aching horribly. So Yuri closes his mouth, takes a deep breath and unceremoniously dumps himself on the bench.

"Are you alright?" Otabek is kneeling by his side, trying to see his face. "Yuri?"

"I'm great, my knee wasn't having any of this idiocy, though." Their eyes meet again. "Did you really think I wouldn't-"

"Sometimes when people are hurt, they can feel a bit resentful. That doesn't mean anything-"

"I would never," He feels like he'll turn inside out if he can't make Otabek understand this. "Not when it's you."

Otabek's face suddenly loses all emotion and Yuri thinks _there, I said too much_. But it's not nearly enough, compared to what Otabek said. What he gave Yuri without even needing to be asked. Without even making a big deal out of it. As if that wasn't everything.

He sees Otabek's lips begin to move, very slowly, and then-

And then, like they have a fucking sensor dedicated to ruining Yuri's life specifically, JJ and Leo crush in, all laughter and loud voices, and drag them both outside where their small celebration party awaits. Between JJ's infuriating attempts of picking Yuri up and Mila playing with Otabek's medal in a very flirty way just to spite Yuri, the moment is irreparably lost to them.

It's fine, though. He still gets to sit next to Otabek at the restaurant, his medal hanging from Yuri neck, as Otabek digs into his first slice of pizza in months and people cheer like it's the big feat of the night. He still gets to be the person Otabek wanted with him most, enough to forfeit his right to bask in victory.

Still gets to be the person to follow Otabek into his room, lie next to him and talk about nothing and everything, even though Otabek looks tired enough to pass out and Yuri's knee's still very angry for being treated like this. Still gets to be the person who gets an absent minded goodnight kiss in his hair.

And, as if that's not enough, still gets to watch Otabek's face as his eyes slip close. Yuri leaves his hand where it is; in the space in between their bodies, forever reaching for Otabek. For once, his shoulders are free of aches.

Maybe there is a grace to losing, after all.


	5. anywhere I go there you are

The may sun is warming, not yet burning, on his face. The gentle breeze combs through his hair with cool tendrils. He's in peace for the first time in a long while. It feels like one of those stolen moments with his deda, when he was so very small that your memories are not memories yet, just impressions and half remembered feelings tangled in a web that resists any attempt of being put into words or understood.

They are at the little strip of beach, a twenty minute distance from the resort. The sand is lumpy, not yet completely dry after the april showers. A few brave souls are venturing into the water and something in Yuri crawls at the thought of the sharp coldness, the hair on his arms stand up. He closes his eyes, sighing. His battered knee twinges slightly from the intense bout of physical therapy it's been through earlier in the morning.

Seagulls scream, shrill, over his head. He doesn't open his eyes. Let them pick him apart piece by piece, if it comes to that. He would suffer through much worse to protect this little pocket of calm.

He can feel Otabek next to him.

They didn't talk after the intensity of the grand-prix night. To Yuri it feels like words are not needed even though he knows they are. He's biding his time at this point. They have a few very busy days before them and he doesn't want anything to mar their little down time.

"It's hot, isn't it?"

He opens his eyes to find Otabek sitting up, in the middle of taking his shirt off. Yuri looks at his revealed skin in something close to fascination. There is an elegantly shaped tattoo that follows the line of his spine, ink almost silvery in this light. He's been told it's there but never actually saw it before. His finger itch to touch it, even though he knows they won't feel like anything but skin. Knowing that makes it even more tempting.

Otabek finally manages to free his head from the shirt and looks at him and Yuri remembers he didn't answer him.

"I guess," he says, shrugging. "Warmer than Moscow, for sure."

"I think I'll take a dip." When Otabek stretches, his back pops. Yuri's eyes steal glances at his collarbone, the movement of his shoulders, his neck. He looks paler than his usual, glowing shade. Needs some sun. Yuri burns to a crisp under any amount of sun but he needs sun as well, if not for his body, for his soul. "Care to join?"

Yuri remembers that little shiver triggered by seeing people going into water.

"It would be cold still," he says cautiously. Remembers the waterfall, fed by the snow from the mountains. Remembers standing under it, feeling smaller than he ever felt. Remembers Yuuri's face, eyes focused, unlike Yuri's own restless wanderers, down, to the frothing water around their knees as if seeing something in it visible only to him.

Otabek is looking at him like that, at that moment. Like Yuri is deep, troubled water that is clear only to him. Like he's seeing the bottom of his soul with all of its sunken treasures and filth.

Yuri also recalls, out of nowhere, his first swimming lesson. His deda picking him out of the water and lifting him high towards the sun, the sense of victory overwhelming in his chest even though his chin trembles from the cold. Laughing, free and at peace. Knowing he's safe with deda. Sure in the knowledge that deda would fish him out the second he needed help.

Otabek shields his eyes with a hand and extends the other to Yuri. A wordless invitation.

A fine shiver runs down his spine, the cold and the fear lurking in the back of his mind.

Yuri takes his hand anyway.

oOo

"I don't see why this requires practicing," Yuri grumbles just for the sake of complaining. He has a reputation to protect, after all. Give the mushy duo an inch and they would take a mile. "It's not exactly a Salchow."

"It's important," Mila says. "Also, we wouldn't want you to trip on a root and go face first, would we now?"

Yuri isn't even in the mood to flip her off. He's wearing his fancy wedding clothes because Victor insisted on everyone doing so and maybe they would be fine for the night but under the midday sun, his jacket is stifling. The little basket full of neroli smells good, at least, even though it keeps slipping from his sweating palm. But that's not the worst of it, no. The worst of it is the company.

Victor is still as distant to him as the mountains. He is his usual, insufferable self to everyone else though, except he took it up like a billion notches between Yuuri's parents and his own parents and all his friends. The contrast makes Yuri itch. He feels out of place, like he's crushing a party he wasn't invited to. It feels like being back at primary school, back when his deda insisted he goes through his schooling normally because he was worried Yuri might feel lonely without any peers around him. He didn't fit there, and he feels like he doesn't fit in here, now, even though logically he knows Victor and Yuuri wouldn't ask him to be the ring bearer if they didn't want him here.

Talking about Yuuri, he's a mess. He bounces around, fueled by nervous energy and an ungodly amount of caffeine and constantly does things like he would drop dead the second he stops. He accidentally swears while talking to Victor's mother and even though she laughs her head off (she is Russian, after all, Yuri doesn't know what he expected), Yuuri gives her a queasy smile and walks away looking like he wants to walk into the ocean and never return. Any time Victor tries to talk to him, which is a lot because it seems he grows more and more worried by the second, he shakes him off, acting more and more manic each time. Yuri watches them with narrowed eyes, the way Victor watches Yuuri go, his eyes cloudy with concern. He waits for a heartbeat before going after him, tries to take a hold of his arm. This is the first time he tried to touch Yuuri during their aborted attempts at talking and Yuuri startles as if he got hit, takes a full step back. Yuri watches Victor take his hand away, holding it up as if showing he didn't mean anything by it. He looks like he's trying to calm a spooked cat. Something about this is painful for Yuri to watch. He turns his head back to the little arch made out of flowers right under the canopy of a giant tree. Little pieces of ribbon gently dances around with the breeze, a few white petals raining down on the small crowd, filling the air with their sweet smell. Yuri takes a deep breath, and another, then another. When it fails, he sighs and closes his eyes, counts to ten and then starts walking towards the pair of idiots.

They are just outside the eyesight of others. Yuuri has his back to a tree like a cornered animal, face full of something Yuri doesn't have a name for. Victor's hands rest limply at his sides, like he doesn't trust himself to not reach out again. They are whispering amongst themselves but Yuri can only catch a few stray words. They are speaking in Japanese.

For a second he basks in the awkwardness of it all and then loudly clears his throat.

They both startle, Yuuri more violently than Victor, and their eyes fall on Yuri at the exact same time as if they practiced for it. He thinks about what he should say for a second, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. He probably should've planned this before he alerted them to his presence, but too late now.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?"

He would like to go with "is everything okay?" and he would, if it was only Katsudon there. But he's still upset with Victor, so they collectively get his bitchiness.

Victor pulls himself to his full height and the openness vanishes from his face, replaced with the formal mask he usually saves for the press. "If we can have some privacy-"

"He obviously doesn't want privacy with you right now." Yuri gestures at Yuuri with the hand that isn't holding a basket full of flowers. For a fleeting second Victor looks hurt. But he catches himself quick and after a glance at Yuuri, he nods.

"I'll leave you to it, then."

He looks defeated as he walks away and Yuri finds that he hates that. Fuck that forever.

"So?"

Yuuri lets himself go and sits on the ground under the tree with his back to it. "I don't-"

"Look at me when you're talking to me." It's a line stolen from Yakov. He picks Yakov as his backup for this situation, just in case.

Yuri raises his head and fixes his eyes to Yuri's left shoulder. Yuri huffs, annoyed. This is the best he can get, apparently.

"Look, I know it's probably a bit too much. But this is your fucking thing. People wouldn't give a shit even if you showed up in your underwear drunk."

Yuuri shakes his head slightly. The movement is so quick that Yuri can't be sure it actually happened.

"All you have to do is stand there upright and mumble a few words. You did a lot more than that with the entire world watching. In a more sparkly outfit, too."

He threw in that last bit hoping for a smile, but it doesn't come. Yuuri's face is still mostly blank, with a tightness around the eyes that make him look oddly fragile.

Yuri looks towards the sky and wonders why the hell he had to grow up. Teenage Yuri would never have to deal with this shit because he wouldn't have come after them in the first place. He would be back at the resort, in the room he shares with Otabek since there were too many guests, playing a game on his phone or something.

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," he says eventually.

Suddenly Yuuri looks pissed.

"Why would you say that? He kept saying the same thing, like that makes any sense at all. If I didn't want to- like I didn't- like I wasn't the one who proposed-"

"Well, maybe because you're acting a little unwilling at the moment. Like you're trapped here or something."

Yuuri runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up. Now it matches the rest of him in terms of messiness.

"It's not about that. It's not even about the bloody wedding-"

"Then do tell me what the fuck it is about-"

"I don't know!" Yuuri gets up so fast, it startles Yuri. "That's the fucking thing, I don't know! I don't know what's wrong! Nothing was wrong yesterday, or at breakfast. Nothing is wrong now, not that I know of. But there is this feeling-" He swallows. And like that just used up his entire energy, he deflates. Sits back down. Under Yuri's annoyance and impatience, fear starts to raise its ugly head.

They are silent for a while. Yuuri breathes very slowly, very deliberately, like that's the only thing he's capable of at the moment. Yuri looks at him feeling like a child all over again without knowing what to do and unsure whether he would be able to do that thing even if he knew. He doesn't expect Yuuri to continue. Just as he starts thinking about going and getting Mari, Yuuri catches him unaware.

"I don't expect you to understand it." His voice is full of defeat. "I don't think you are capable of feeling like this. Like you are just falling short, no matter how hard you try or how much you want to reach that point. Like you are just too much to handle, too much for people to bother wi-" He stops abruptly, as if he choked on the word. His eyes meet Yuri's for the first time. "Like no matter how much people look like they love you, you will do something and they will decide you are more effort than you're worth and-"

"My mom left me," Yuri says without really wanting to, not particularly. But it explains a lot, the way Katsudon saw him. It's jarring to realize how different can the perceptions people have on you be from your own. Yuri can't even imagine himself as the person Katsudon thought he was, all this time. And he needs him to know. Needs him to see. Maybe then he would let Yuri see him, too.

Yuuri's eyes grow wide and Yuri seizes the moment before he can say anything.

"She was a skater too, you see. A promising one, from what I've been told. I was kind of a mistake. My father-they were both young and stupid and when she realized what it meant for her, she kinda just dumped me on deda and left. She never contacted me after that, to this day. When I was little, I used to think that she would reach out to me, once I win my first grand-prix. I don't know why, exactly. I just thought that maybe, if she saw what I was capable of, then she would think I was worth it, somehow. But she didn't. Maybe she's not even alive, who knows. She never showed up anywhere deda tried to look for her. And my father, well, no one really knows what the fuck happened with him but deda says he's always been wayward. And he says this like it doesn't hurt him but I know it does, deep down. I know he misses him, even if he doesn't want to. So I tried very hard to be the best child I can be for him, you know, someone he can be proud of. Someone who would be there for him, like he's been there for them. And that's a lot of work, too, especially when you are young and you don't even know who to be or how to be anything at all. To this day, I'm still not sure who I am. If I can take credit for any part of me, considering how much of it came from deda or Yakov or Lilia or Mila, or Georgi or fucking Victor. Even you. And sometimes I think I'm more trouble than I'm worth and maybe that's true for everyone. But so was walking for the first time. So was fucking skating. And you did it anyway. You went out there and put your knees through hell and tore yourself to pieces. So it has to mean something. Do you see?" His heart beats so fast, he feels a bit dizzy. He's also breathing very hard like he's been yelling instead of nearly whispering. "Lilia once told me that anything that matters hurts. You couldn't have become what it takes to be a world class skater without changing your shape and that hurt. And you couldn't have become what it takes to love Victor without changing either. And you're kinda in the middle of it, from what I see. So it will fucking hurt but in the end that's the only way, unless you want to go out there and tell him you would rather be numb and alone for the rest of your life."

Yuuri is staring at him with eyes so wide it's almost childish. Yuri swallows the ache in his chest. Pulls himself back together to the best of his ability. "I'll go first," he says.

He is slightly worried that he made things even worse, somehow. He doesn't hear any footsteps coming after him. He feels almost as defeated as Victor looked once he steps back into the clearing, keeping his eyes down to avoid making eye contact with anyone. But then, a few seconds later, Yuuri comes out under the trees looking anxious but determined, in the middle of a transformation, half shadowed and half bright under the slowly dipping sun. Yuri raises his head just in time to catch him reach out and take Victor's hand in his. Victor's smile is small and tentative still, but it's there and the maddening unease escapes Yuri's chest like water that's been sitting stagnant for too long and now gets to run back to the sea once more.

OOo

Yuri is sitting in a soft robe on the lip of the little pool, his feet in the warm water, trying to let go of the tension of the day.

The rehearsal went fine after their little storm. Everyone said what they need to say at the right moment and Yuri threw flowers in the air with as much apathy as the act of throwing flowers in the air permits.The ring box was there, at the bottom of the basket, as it was suppose to be. Yakov was officiating the wedding since both Yuuri and Victor were more devoted to skating than religion. Their parents were getting on well, a little too well, for Yuri's sanity. It was good. Beautiful even, if he could bring himself to utter such a word. And they will get to do it all over again in a few days, hopefully without any breakdowns this time. He's not sure he can handle another.

He shakes the robe off and lowers himself into the water, wary of his still healing knee. The heat feels very nice on it.

He hears the footsteps but doesn't pay much attention. There are so many people staying with them at the resort at the moment, it can be literally anyone. He doesn't necessarily want company but he doesn't want to leave either. The water is too nice.

He only realizes it's Victor when the other man sits himself next to Yuri on the tiled edge at an arm's length.

"I just wanted to t-"

"Don't." He frowns slightly to the water. "I didn't do it for you."

"I'm aware."

"Good."

They sink into this stubborn silence. Yuri thinks about stubbornness, just to have something to do. He wonders if he would've become someone more mellow, had he not grown up with a bunch of people who are stubborn on an honestly absurd level.

"I was so scared," Victor says out of nowhere. Yuri keeps staring at his feet, looking contorted under the gently swishing water. "When you fell. It's very different being the one who falls and the one who watches. I knew this, of course. But-" He sighs, like he's afraid what will happen in the next moment. "Do you remember when you were little, I extended you a bet about quadruple axels?"

"I'm not the one going senile."

Victor's lips curl slightly. "I always thought those as a.....I don't know, like our thing. Like overly sugary coffee drinks for me and Mila. And then you fell,and I felt like....I'm not really good at feelings, or at least my therapist says so. I didn't know how badly you were hurt and you didn't get up and I was so, so fucking scared that something- injuring yourself is one thing, for the job, but some of these things are for life, Yuri. And my mom always says you need to find a balance between work and life. And god knows you're handling it a lot better than I did, back when I was your age. But you were down and for the first time ever you weren't getting up and I couldn't stop thinking about how much of it was my fault. You spent all your formative years with us, after all. Learning how things are done from us as you go. And I couldn't bear it if it was somehow my fault-"

"Am I suppose to understand one word from this jumbled mess?" Yuri tilts his head, looking at him with a little burning sensation behind his eyelids.

"I thought I ruined you. That I was the last nail in this fucking coffin. Like you would've ended up better if I just stood aside and let you-"

"That's bullshit."

Victor swats at his face, the movement oddly catlike. "Maybe. Maybe it's not. You wouldn't know."

"Right, because you know so much, o wise one."

"Exactly. I don't know shit-"

"Are you fucking fishing for compliments? You certainly don't need me to tell you-"

"I don't know shit when it comes to parenting."

Yuri wants to go under and slowly drown himself out of this conversation.

"Good thing you're not anyone's parent, then," he reminds him.

"That's true. That was bad wording. I don't know shit when it comes to taking care of people. There. Do you like it better?"

"That's also bullshit."

"It's not, Yura. It's not."

It's the name that does it. He hasn't called Yuri that, not after Yuri hit ten and stopped getting upset about shit like his feet bleeding.

"It is," Yuri says, through clenched teeth. His jaw actually hurts. "You kept this stupid team together through it all. You gave us something to look towards, when things hurt too much. So we wouldn't lose sight of what was possible. So we wouldn't forget."

Victor looks...moved. It's painful to see, for some reason, worse than him looking hurt. Yuri goes back staring at his own feet, slightly floating. He steels himself for the last bit. He's not sure whether he should share it. He shared too much today, more than he has in the last decade. But keeping things inside makes him restless, it always has and for once he doesn't have an outlet. He cannot go running until he feels like he'll drop dead on the spot. He cannot get on the ice and bruise himself until the familiar ache can lull him to sleep. He cannot do anything with it except sit still and let it consume him slowly, dreadfully. He doesn't want that. It scares him more than the possibility of rejection, of humiliation. Maybe it's not only about the movement. Maybe it was easier when he was younger because his bones were not set yet and they were able to shift to accommodate the immense weight all the things he swallowed down merged into. They are set now. They refuse to budge, no matter how hard Yuri kicks at them, how hard he begs. And maybe it won't be too different from beating his joints into having more mobility or bullying his muscles into staying flexible. He can survive it. He knows how to ache.

"I was four or five, I think," he says softly. "Deda needed to talk to Yakov about something and he brought me along with him. They let me sit and watch as they talked. That was the first time I saw you, or anyone skate. I don't remember what jump you were trying but you fell, pretty hard. And you got up. Then again. And again. You kept falling but you always got up. I didn't really care. But a few months later I saw you on TV, skating, and you didn't fall then. You nailed it. And I learned that I wanted to be a skater that day. And that you get up, no matter how much it hurts, because if you don't, you'll never get to stand there under the lights, triumphant and adored and seen." He expected to feel mortified but he feels sore, for some reason. Like a muscle that's been stretched so far that it snapped.

When he raises his head, Victor is staring at his own hands, clasped on his lap.

"So I was right," he says, lips almost unmoving.

"If no one can see you, no one can love you." Yuri takes a few steps towards him. "I wouldn't give that up for any pain in the world."

Victor opens his mouth to say something, eyes wide and liquid, and Yuri picks that exact moment to splash him. Victor lets out an undignified yelp, instinctively backing away. Yuri can't hold it anymore. He stands there and laughs and laughs and laughs until tears leak out of his eyes and his chest actually hurts and it starts edging hysterical. Once he can calm himself enough to gulp down some air, he sees that Victor was also laughing. Their eyes meet for a second and then they are back into hysterics, laughing so hard the water sloshes wildly and Victor falls on his back on the ground. The ruckus fills the humid night air, accompanied by an over eager cicada who couldn't wait until full summer. Eventually Victor sits up and wipes his face with the edge of his towel. Gets up to leave.

"Yuuri wanted you to know that it means a lot to him," he says, "whatever you said." He looks actually curious.

"Wouldn't you want to know."

"Goodnight, Yuri."

Yuri, who started to feel like a dry sponge from the amount of sharing, goes under to escape him.

When he comes out again, the night is utterly still.

OOo

"I've been thinking about it, you know."

Otabek's eyes are barely visible in the dark but Yuri still knows they watch him.

"Yeah? How is it going?"

"I think I might have some things to share in a few days." Something in his chest, where his newfound courage wrestled with habit, is still sore. But he'll work through the pain just to get to his moment under the lights. Just to get to Otabek. Business as usual.

"I'll be here when you're ready," Otabek says, sleepy and warm and unwavering.

"I know," Yuri says, for once, content.


	6. and I'll always feel you in my blood

To some people it may sound utterly insane but Yuri approaches the whole confessing your love thing like he approaches physical therapy.

It will hurt no matter the outcome. He is starkly aware of this. Even if Otabek loves him back in the same way Yuri loves him, it will still change their relationship on some level and that will require adjustments like Lilia gently but firmly pushing his thigh further back than it naturally wants to go, and those always hurt at first. But he also knows it carries the potential of making things a lot better in the end. He might end up in a place in his life where he doesn't have to keep everything so close to his chest, so full of words hoarded like cheap trinkets that would only be worth something in a specific moment but missed their moment because of Yuri's fear or his aversion. He wants that as passionately as he wanted his first gold medal. He wants to reveal to Otabek the last piece of himself that he's been hiding behind thick fog of half truths and long pauses. He wants to be free with his affection. He wants to tell him everything, even when it makes no sense, so Otabek can have those words and pick through them to his liking. So he would know that Yuri was willing to dig up a little place for him in his chest.

That little, cynical voice in his head says it's incredible that he can make the whole thing sound so clinical and so disgustingly sappy at the same time.

Yuri, too distracted at the moment by Otabek's laugh, so rare and cherished and warming, lets it get away with that comment.

OOo

They wake up at the crack of dawn in the day of the wedding, even though there is literally no need to. The grove is set up, all ready for the ceremony. Their clothes are already cleaned and delivered back, neatly hanged in their respective rooms. All the guests are already there, no one left to be picked up from the airport. And even though Victor is a world class preener, even he wouldn't spend fourteen fucking hours getting ready. Maybe it's the power of habits or maybe they are all feeling slightly anxious about one thing or another, but when Yuri comes down to the main hall for breakfast, the entire resort is up and present, slowly eating or having small talk in their pajamas.

Yuuri and Victor are at the far back, sitting at the spot nearest to the kitchen door. Victor's parents are there with them, and Mari and Minako with her husband and Yuuri's mom. His dad, as if Yuri summoned him by thinking, appears from the kitchen with a plate high with something that looks like pancakes, closely tailed by a very sleepy looking JJ. There is batter on JJ's stupid face, Yuri notices. He catches Yuri looking and winks at him.

Growing up is weird and all that, but there is no way he can live long enough to somehow grow out of hating JJ.

Otabek is nowhere to be found, and he was long gone when Yuri woke up. He stands by the door for a second, trying to gather his thoughts. Then swiftly walks to Victor's table, snatches something that looks like a type of sweet bun from his plate and before anyone can react in any way, walks out as fast as he came in.

Otabek, as he predicted, is sitting alone at a far corner of the little garden, sitting cross legged on the damp grass. His precious cup of coffee, half full, is balanced on one knee. His face is turned towards the sun slowly crawling up the sky, his eyes are closed. Yuri knows he should stop with the staring but it's just so hard, especially when Otabek doesn't see him. His hair is a bit longer on the top, his eyes slightly puffy. When Yuri comes closer, his feet silent on the grass, he blinks them open.

"Hey." He suddenly feels unsure. He knows Otabek likes being alone, needs it to recharge. It's probably the only opportunity he will get before the wedding kicks in at its full glory. Yuri suddenly feels like he's leeching on his precious alone time. His newly awake mind just wanted to be where Otabek was, so his feet brought him there without a second thought. Maybe it was a misstep.

"Morning." Otabek's hand softly pats the ground next to him. "Wanna sit down? You're blocking my sun." He smiles, that small and soft one Yuri secretly loves the most. It's the one reserved for the people Otabek consider the closest and being a member of that small group always stirs something akin to awe in Yuri. Otabek is very devoted in his affections, that's the thing. If he picks you as a friend, which is not something he ever does lightly, Yuri came to understand, he will give his all to you. He will remember each little detail, he will ride and die for you without needing to be prompted, he will offer himself freely. That's why he is very picky, he once explained to Yuri during a very late night conversation. It takes a lot of attention and planning and time to maintain his version of a friendship. Yuri still remembers being amazed listening to it. The knowledge of Otabek, of all people, found him worthy of this got him through quite a lot of rough patches.

He lowers himself to the ground more carefully than he usually would, extends his bad knee. While Otabek is distracted by the rustling of leaves, he steals the cup from where it's precariously balanced and takes a sip. There is enough milk that he can taste it but not enough to completely chase away the bitter aftertaste of strong coffee. It's not scalding anymore, like Otabek likes it, but still warms his palms when he cups it between them. Otabek's hand blindly reaches for the cup that is not there anymore and Yuri catches it, curls his fingers around the cup. Otabek raises it and takes a sip without even pausing, like that's what they do every morning.

"Needs more milk," Yuri says, a strange humming feeling filling his chest. It's like slowly getting filled with warm water.

"Bring your own coffee next time," Otabek says, voice still soft and gravelly. Puts the cup on Yuri's thigh, hand guiding his to hold it.

Yuri takes a chunk out of the roll and puts it where the cup originally was. For a while they just eat and drink in silence. Then, as Yuri is taking another sip, Otabek yawns and puts his head on Yuri's lap, turning so that if Yuri looks down, they would be facing each other.

The light is still pale. The small veins crossing Otabek's eyelids look incredibly delicate. Yuri's hand moves on its own, his fingertips brush the line of Otabek's jaw, his cheek. Then he turns again, towards Yuri's stomach this time, hiding his face in Yuri's oversized hoodie. Yuri's heart doesn't speed up but feels like it's beating more deeply, like that's possible. The rhythm reverberates in his chest like a star winking out or deep silence; like something coming to an end. He gathers all the gentleness he possesses and combs through Otabek's hair once, twice. Then, as the light slowly grows warmer, goes back to the too bitter coffee.

It's a fascinating discovery to make each and every time, how some imperfections can be perfect like that.

oOo

The wedding is, as Yuri had expected, ridiculous.

Their vows alone take an entire hour because they keep repeating everything in three separate languages so that everyone present would understand what they are saying and people keep commenting and cheering and making jokes and whistling and, when Yuuri's father is concerned, crying softly. Yuri's patience is pretty thin by the time Victor finally- fucking finally- picks up the little box and retrieves a ring, puts it on Yuuri's finger. His fingers are a little shaky, Yuri notes. Yuuri's are not, though. He looks very sure about all of it. Their eyes meet for a second, as Yuuri retrieves the other ring, and he nods to Yuri, such a small movement that he would definitely miss if it if he wasn't standing this close.

Their first dance doesn't happen on ice because apparently nature doesn't give a shit about you being a millionaire pro-athlete, it won't let you build an ice rink, no matter how small, in the middle of dirt in spring air. But their movements are as fluid as if the whole thing is happening on ice, while they gently move around. After that, as they dance with each other's mothers, other couples join them.

Despite Mila's insistent attempts to get Yuri to dance with her, he refuses to get up. It feels weird being at a wedding without deda. Up until this point, every wedding he's been to, he went on deda's insistence. It must be another side effect of growing up, he thinks, having to push yourself to be at places you are not exactly comfortable being at, because you still want to be there, for one reason or another. He plays with his champagne glass- he's not sure how it's possible but it tastes of fizzing-as he watches people do their own thing. Mila is dancing with Leo. Victor twirls Mrs. Katsuki around like something out of a movie. They look like they're having a lot of fun. Yuuri's dance with Mrs. Nikiforov is more tame, though they are smiling at each other. Her mouth is moving like she's saying something to him. Yuri's eyes fall on Otabek. He's talking to JJ. Yuri can't wrap his mind around anyone- leave alone Otabek- willingly talking to JJ. He smiles, though, at something JJ says, eyes full of mirth.

Yuri loses the concept of passage of time. He feels like he's been born right here, at this wedding. Like all the major events of his life, including those that happened on ice, happened right here under these same exact trees. Like he never saw anyone but these people, wearing these clothes. It's strangely comforting in a way he doesn't quite comprehend. Maybe the champagne has a part in it. He leans into his chair, throws his head back and squints at the night sky. There are quit a lot of stars, more than what is visible from Moscow, for sure. The air feels more humid in the dark, more still. He takes off his jacket, undoes a few buttons. Thinks back to that morning, sharing coffee and silence and space with Otabek.

Suddenly, everything seems so simple. It seems weird now that he was so unsure, that he thought this so hard to figure out. He knows exactly what he wants, as clear as day. He knows the exact words he needs to say. He also knows, deep down, that it will be granted to him. Otabek gave him everything without needing to be asked. And if he thinks this too much, he would say. Yuri knows he would.

He cannot move though. This revelation is too bright, too big to carry. He just sits there, brimming with energy, words jumbling into a mess and then clearing out in his mind, again and again. He stubbornly resists any attempts his mind makes to cloud up again. His goal is as bright as Polaris. He will reach it even if it ends up undoing him.

Otabek is walking towards him, his hair a mess, his sleeves rolled up.

"Yura," he leans in very close so Yuri can hear him with the music so loud. His lips almost brush Yuri's ear. "You look miles away."

Yuri holds himself very still, acutely aware that with how close they are standing, he can just turn his head and brush their lips together, as easy as breathing. He can't, though. Words first, even if it's very inconvenient.

"Wanna go somewhere more quiet?"

Otabek's face suddenly loses its slackness. Under the contrast of the halo of bright lights and the deep darkness surrounding that, its angles are almost too sharp to bear, like some mythic hero. Yuri remembers the soft morning sun, small, delicate veins on eyelids, the pulse point on his wrist with movement faintly visible through thin skin. _I should've done this in the morning._ Everything feels slightly surreal in the dark.

He nods and when Yuri steps into the darkness of trees, he follows, hand finding his without needing light, lets him lead. Yuri walks without knowing where he's going. It's probably not a good idea to venture into the trees in the dark but it's just a small grove. He is too aware that Otabek literally let him drag him into the dark, the unknown. His trust is blinding.

They reach another, much smaller clearing. Away from the lights, the moon is full and bright, gives everything a cold, silvery tint. Otabek's eyes shine under it, instantly finding Yuri's face.

"Remember when I told you I would have some things to share in a few days?" He feels breathless.

Otabek nods, eyes focused. In the dark, Yuri has all his attention. He suddenly realizes he's still holding Otabek's hand. Hoping the moon is not bright enough to make his blush visible, he lets go.

"You told me to start small but I figured that it still needs to be important," he says. It's just the two of them here but he feels more vulnerable than he ever felt with thousands of people watching his every movement. "And it took me some time to figure it out, to flesh it all out enough to be put into words. But I think I found a pretty fundamental thing I want." His eyes keep drifting down to the ground and Yuri chastises himself, drags them back up to Otabek's. He's not a coward. He never shied away from looking when he bared himself. Never averted his eyes from blisters or cuts or tears in his costumes. And Otabek doesn't deserve to be treated like a coward either. He never looked away from Yuri, even at his ugliest or rawest.

Fast, Yuri thinks. He shouldn't give himself time to think about it, to overcomplicate it like his mind's itching to do. Like ripping off a bandage. A clean break is always better than fractures.

"I want moments with you."

Otabek is silent for a second. There is that look in his eyes again, the one from the beach, like he's looking at something deep inside Yuri that is visible only to him. Yuri sees his throat work. Steels himself.

"Is that all?"

That catches him off guard. He expected a question demanding he clarifies what he meant with moments or something. This is unexpected and slightly confusing. Otabek's face betrays nothing, as smooth as the night itself, as still.

Yuri can hear him breathing, slow and deep, as if he's very careful with it.

"I-" He pauses, wets his lips. "I want you to see me. I want you to never stop seeing me."

"I wouldn't."

"And if you see something you don't like-"

"You don't stop loving the sea when you see a creepy shadow in it."

Yuri feels weightless. It's not as peaceful as it sounds, as a feeling. He feels unsure, like he can't remember which way is the ground and which way is the sky. It's disorienting. Slightly nauseating.

"Is that all?" Otabek asks again, when Yuri doesn't answer.

"I want you." His voice is suddenly very raspy.

"You have me." Stated like it's a well known fact.

His rising adrenaline level holds tears at bay. He never felt this unsure with Otabek, not even when they first met. But he knew Otabek wouldn't let it go if he knew Yuri was hiding behind things and he's doing just that. Yuri needs to try harder, push himself further to break the habit.

"I want everything." It's a whisper this time, and it's cowardly but he's suddenly so very tired. "I want everything you're willing to give. I want too much. Too fucking much that it scares me."

The words remain, as if floating between them. Yuri swallows very hard, his vision blurry with unshed tears. He remembers the tears that filled his eyes as Lilia broke him into pieces and put them together again in a more accommodating shape. He's at his breaking point, he knows. That's his limit. If he pushes harder, something will snap. But he trusts Otabek like he trusted Lilia back then. Even if he is to break, Otabek would put him back together come the soft morning light. Otabek, who is gentle and caring and ever careful. Otabek who caught him a couple of hundred times. Otabek who hid Yuri from the lights, the world, himself, when he wanted to hide.

Otabek, who is suddenly very close. His hands come up slowly, deliberately, and as Yuri holds his breath, they catch Yuri's hand between them, fingertips gently stroking the length of his fingers, his knuckles, his wrist. "Anything. I would give anything-" He waits until Yuri raises his head, looks him in the eye, then takes another step and takes him into his arms, burying his face in the space between Yuri's shoulder and neck. Yuri's entire body aches like he just finished performing a program, but it's a good ache. He finally made it there, he's having his moment under the lights. It was worth it, in the end.

He wraps his own arms around Otabek and presses him to his chest, which feels oddly light and hollow without all those words hidden in it.

oOo

It feels weird to return to the wedding afterwards so they just walk the small distance from the grove to the resort. The silence is comfortable again, like it was in the morning. Otabek's hold on his hand is firm, sure. Yuri keeps thinking about his last remaining secret. He feels almost giddy with it. Anything, Otabek said, and it's quite small compared to some of the things Yuri asked of him through the years. The anticipation is almost sweet in the way it burns, like the first ice cream of summer.

Their room is darker than the clearing, but neither of them turns the light on. It needs no words this time, Yuri pulls him towards his bed and Otabek comes, as easy as that. He eventually has to let his hand go to take off his shirt, then his own. They do the rest on their own, getting ready for bed silently, side by side. Yuri climbs in first, keeps the duvet open for Otabek to slide next to him. The single bed is quite narrow for two people but after a few adjustments, they find a way to fit themselves together. The shirt Otabek wears to bed is soft under his fingers, the nape of his neck, that Yuri wanted to kiss very badly at the grand-prix final is a couple centimeters away from his lips. He would only need to lean in a bit. So he does. The skin is even softer than he expected, warmer than his lips. "Goodnight, Beka," he murmurs into it.

"Your turn to bring the coffee tomorrow," Otabek says, voice sleepy, betraying a smile. Yuri's own lips curl in answer, helpless, devoted.

Always meeting him in the middle.

oOo

Otabek, sitting under the golden midmorning sun, complains that the coffee is too sweet and watery.

It doesn't stop him from kissing it off of Yuri's lips, though.


End file.
